Chapter 4I ordered a small black tea in the cafeteria and took the stairs, two at a time, to my father’s room on the third floor.
I got sidetracked by one of my father’s nurses. Not Mom’s lookalike Anne, but Betty, a docile, mousy-looking woman who didn’t smile, looked shy and skittish as a kitten, but answered all my questions when I sat down with her in the family lounge.
Our talk lasted less than three minutes; she wasn’t much of a conversationalist, but she was frank. She was prickly like a porcupine. As I walked down the corridor to my father’s room, there were sounds of sickness and death coming from inside every room. Asthmatic coughs. Dry heaving. Retching. Screaming.
Henry was sleeping when I got to his room, snoring as a hibernating bear. I set his Styrofoam cup of tea on the
